Shop win­dow to best in Wex­ford busi­ness

WEX­FORD busi­ness put it­self on show at County Hall last week with 80 ex­hibitors tak­ing part in one of the big­gest net­work­ing events of the year.

The Wex­ford Busi­ness Expo pro­vided a shop win­dow on the county, with stalls rep­re­sent­ing an A-Z of the busi­ness com­mu­nity ea­ger to at­tract vis­i­tors.

Model Rosanna Dav­i­son, who won Miss World in 2003, along with edi­tor of the Sun­day Busi­ness Post, Ian Ke­hoe, made an ap­pear­ance at this year’s Busi­ness Expo, which drew more than 2,000 vis­i­tors.

In his ad­dress, Pres­i­dent of Wex­ford Cham­ber Karl Fitz­patrick, who of­fi­cially opened the Expo, said the event is there to help ex­hibitors to progress their busi­ness and ‘find the next gear.’

He said that the free event of­fered a wealth of op­por­tu­ni­ties, ad­vice and in­for­ma­tion for those who wanted to ex­pand their busi­ness.

Dr Janette Davis and Dr Veron­ica Kelly from Wex­ford Cam­pus IT Car­low were heart­ened to see a va­ri­ety of ed­u­ca­tional stands among those ex­hibit­ing.

‘It is a fan­tas­tic op­por­tu­nity for some­one like us to show that we are­here, in terms of ed­u­ca­tional sup­port around Wex­ford,’ said Mrs Davis.

Over at the stall of the Wex­ford Work­ing Men’s Shed, Bren­dan Tormey and Teddy Doyle were very happy to get the op­por­tu­nity to show­case what they do.

Ev­ery year AIB Wex­ford set up a stall to give fi­nan­cial in­for­ma­tion to the vis­i­tors. This year AIB’s Martin Doyle said the Expo was the best one yet.

‘ The at­mos­phere here is just bril­liant and where we are sit­u­ated [near the en­trance] is great. We get to catch peo­ple com­ing in and when they are leav­ing,’ said Mr Doyle.

Karol Jack­son from Me­napia Prop­er­ties achieved what she set out to do at the Busi­ness Expo.

‘I got two great leads to­day, so I am more than happy. I feel it is very im­por­tant for busi­nesses to make the pub­lic aware of their ser­vices.’

The Cham­ber had three Google Garage work­shops run­ning through­out the day – Reach New Cus­tomers On­line, Tell Your Story On­line and Know Your Busi­ness with Google An­a­lyt­ics.

News­pa­per edi­tor Ian Ke­hoe spoke of the risks and re­wards of grow­ing your own busi­ness.

His pre­sen­ta­tion was fol­lowed by the launch of Wex­ford Cham­ber’s BAR (Busi­nesses Act­ing Re­spon­si­bly), a new ini­tia­tive en­cour­ag­ing in­volve­ment in com­mu­nity, phi­lan­thropy, health and well­be­ing, and en­vi­ron­ment.

Mean­while, the Wex­ford Food Fam­ily also launched their Wex­ford Food Fo­cus 2020 strat­egy at the Expo. It aims to pro­mote and grow the Wex­ford Food Fam­ily busi­nesses for the next three years, by set­ting up meet­ings with the pub­lic to help them ex­pand.

Later in the day, model Rosanna Dav­i­son made an ap­pear­ance and took the time to pose for pic­tures with some of the ex­hibitors.